Media Gave 'Pathetic' Benghazi Coverage To Aid Obama

Bias: Call it the "October Suppress" as the so-called "mainstream" media provided less coverage to the current president's bungling of and lying about Benghazi than they did to another president's decades-old DUI arrest.

Last Friday, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Kirsten Powers, a Daily Beast columnist, appeared on Fox News' "Happening Now" program to justifiably bash the mainstream media and its orchestrated suppression of coverage of the terrorist attack in Benghazi.

Neither is a charter member of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," but both roundly condemned the shameful and politically motivated actions of their colleagues. Miller called them "co-conspirators" in a Benghazi cover-up, and Powers said the "mainstream media is pathetic" and "carrying water for the administration."

They are right and just one example is what happened on all the Sunday talk shows on Oct. 28. When the Benghazi attack was brought up by a guest, the moderator quickly changed the subject.

When Newt Gingrich raised Benghazi on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos quickly moved on to another topic. Also running interference for Team Obama was NBC's David Gregory who cut off GOP panelist Carly Fiorina while promising to "get to that a little later," which he never did.

On CNN's "State of the Union," Candy Crowley, who aided President Obama in the second presidential debate by wrongly telling Mitt Romney that Obama called Benghazi a terrorist attack from day one, sloughed off attempts by two GOP officials to bring up Benghazi.

Folks like ABC's Rick Klein explain away the Benghazi non-coverage by saying it's because GOP nominee Mitt Romney did not make much of an issue of it, particularly during the presidential debates. If he had spoken out about it, he would have covered it.

Yet witness what happened in the town hall debate when Romney did bring it up. Crowley took Obama's side and argued with Romney as the president looked on approvingly. When Romney condemned our Egyptian embassy's apology for the video the administration used as an excuse for weeks after the attack, he was condemned for politicizing the issue, the media spending more time on his comments than the terrorist attack.

NBC's Brian Williams opened his Sept. 12 Nightly News with: "Romney is taking fire tonight for the way he went on the attack" over Benghazi. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley noted "Democrats said the governor had injected politics into a tragedy."

Bias: Call it the "October Suppress" as the so-called "mainstream" media provided less coverage to the current president's bungling of and lying about Benghazi than they did to another president's decades-old DUI arrest.

Last Friday, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Kirsten Powers, a Daily Beast columnist, appeared on Fox News' "Happening Now" program to justifiably bash the mainstream media and its orchestrated suppression of coverage of the terrorist attack in Benghazi.

Neither is a charter member of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," but both roundly condemned the shameful and politically motivated actions of their colleagues. Miller called them "co-conspirators" in a Benghazi cover-up, and Powers said the "mainstream media is pathetic" and "carrying water for the administration."

They are right and just one example is what happened on all the Sunday talk shows on Oct. 28. When the Benghazi attack was brought up by a guest, the moderator quickly changed the subject.

When Newt Gingrich raised Benghazi on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos quickly moved on to another topic. Also running interference for Team Obama was NBC's David Gregory who cut off GOP panelist Carly Fiorina while promising to "get to that a little later," which he never did.

On CNN's "State of the Union," Candy Crowley, who aided President Obama in the second presidential debate by wrongly telling Mitt Romney that Obama called Benghazi a terrorist attack from day one, sloughed off attempts by two GOP officials to bring up Benghazi.

Folks like ABC's Rick Klein explain away the Benghazi non-coverage by saying it's because GOP nominee Mitt Romney did not make much of an issue of it, particularly during the presidential debates. If he had spoken out about it, he would have covered it.

Yet witness what happened in the town hall debate when Romney did bring it up. Crowley took Obama's side and argued with Romney as the president looked on approvingly. When Romney condemned our Egyptian embassy's apology for the video the administration used as an excuse for weeks after the attack, he was condemned for politicizing the issue, the media spending more time on his comments than the terrorist attack.

NBC's Brian Williams opened his Sept. 12 Nightly News with: "Romney is taking fire tonight for the way he went on the attack" over Benghazi. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley noted "Democrats said the governor had injected politics into a tragedy."

That first night, a Media Research Center analysis found the Romney angle received nearly 10 minutes of coverage on the Big Three evening newscasts (9 minutes, 28 seconds) vs. just 25 seconds questioning Obama's Mideast policy.

From there it was downhill, as the networks ignored revelations that the Obama administration didn't heed prior warnings, denied requests for added security and knew the al-Qaida-linked group Ansar al-Sharia was responsible for the attack they watched as it happened.

What the media consider news important enough to judge a presidential candidate on has apparently changed over time. In 2000, a Democratic operative orchestrated an "October surprise" attack on George W. Bush, revealing that 24 years earlier Bush had been arrested for drunken driving. That spawned a media feeding frenzy that nearly cost Bush his election bid.

In 2004, CBS icon Dan Rather thought forged documents proved former F-102 fighter pilot Bush had used his father's influence to avoid service in Vietnam. Even after it was revealed the documents were fraudulent and that Bush the younger had in fact volunteered for Vietnam service, Rather still insisted the story was true.

But the murder of four Americans in a terrorist attack, including the first ambassador in three decades, was ignored because it might have hurt their candidate, President Obama, who falsely claimed the war on terror was over and terrorism was as dead as Osama bin Laden.

See Also

Leadership: Among the world's gamier states, there seems to be a new status quo: Kill your opponent. The murder of Boris Nemtsov is the latest such barbarism. It all suggests a void from the U.S. as leader of the free world.The brazen broad-daylight assassination of Nemtsov, a former Russian vice ...

Economy: In his weekly address, President Obama railed against Wall Street for giving "bad advice" that costs American families billions a year. OK, but what about his bad policies that have cost them far more?The president used his precious radio time to lash out at financial advisers for mistakes ...

Cities: The problem with socialism, Margaret Thatcher once noted, is you eventually run out of other people's money. In progressive Chicago, that's hit home as Moody's has cut its credit rating to two grades above "junk."Chicago's finances are staggering under the weight of an unfunded pension ...

Racial Politics: Attorney General Eric Holder complains that the U.S. needs a "lower standard of proof" to enforce civil-rights laws. Standards have already sunk under his "disparate impact" witch hunt. How low is enough? In an exit interview with Politico.com, the outgoing AG asserted, "Some ...

We recently launched the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity with the goal of persuading the presidential hopefuls in both parties to focus on the paramount challenge facing our country: slow growth and stagnant incomes. Faster growth isn't just needed to raise the living standards of ...

Select market data is provided by Interactive Data Corp. Real Time Services. Price and Volume data is delayed 20 minutes unless otherwise noted, is believed accurate but is not warranted or guaranteed by Interactive Data Corp. Real Time Services and is subject to Interactive Data Corp. Real Time Services terms. All times are Eastern United States. *Reflects real-time index prices.